Manned Landing On Titan, Issues & Answers? Options

[Juramike]

That's GENIUS.

Doug

(I can't take credit for it)

(But you can buy the T-shirt: http://www.redmolotov.com/catalogue/design...ionprecipitate)

[Shaka]

(It is comforting to note that Huygens didn't get blown up when it landed.)

-Mike

Are you sure we know how many times it landed?

[nprev]

Are you sure we know how many times it landed?

...we'd have to rename it the "Wile E. Coyote Memorial Station"...

[edstrick]

"Do you have a reference for this? I poked around a little and couldn't find anything...."

This was being presented back in the late 80's at Lunar and Planetary Science Conferrences, post Voyager-2 at Triton. Results may/probably-are also in DPS and AGU Spring/Fall meeting abstracts.

re: "Wile E. Coyote Memorial Station"
ROTFLMAO.

[nprev]

...thank you, Ed, but all credit to Shaka for that mental image!

Damn interesting, though. We've been thinking of organics as essentially inert, but quite obviously they're not else life on Earth wouldn't have happened in the first place. Titan's chemosynthetic history & capabilities are unknown, and it will probably take several generations of surface probes to shed enough light to enable manned exploration...

[rlorenz]

Re: stuff blowing up on Titan

Do you have a reference for this? I poked around a little and couldn't find anything.

But it might be possible: Some possible culprits would be diazomethane (CH2N2) and even more hazardous cousins diazidomethane and triazidomethane (HC[N3]2).
.....

Solid acetylene (C2H2) can polymerize explosively. Some wag in the early 1990s suggested that
Huygens' landing might set the whole planet off

But of course, meteorite impacts or shockwaves from tunguska-like breakups etc. would do that
on a regular basis anyway, so the accumulation of explosives will not be large

[nprev]

Well, assuming for the moment that we're not likely to hop across the surface from multiple "land-mine" encounters, how would a large manned vehicle (LM-class or better) execute EDL? Seems easier at first glance than landing on Mars because of the thicker atmosphere & lower gravity (and lower initial orbital velocity to shed).

Side note- "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate"...comedian Steven Wright, no? That guy is absolutely brilliant.

[David]

Well, assuming for the moment that we're not likely to hop across the surface from multiple "land-mine" encounters, how would a large manned vehicle (LM-class or better) execute EDL? Seems easier at first glance than landing on Mars because of the thicker atmosphere & lower gravity (and lower initial orbital velocity to shed).

There's always the possibility of splashdown!

[nprev]

There's always the possibility of splashdown!

True, given accurate targeting...but then what?

I'd hate to have to design an auxiliary propulsion system to get the damn thing near the shore (remember, we're talking a manned vehicle here), to say nothing of disembarcation...lots of complexities here.

[dvandorn]

How effectively, given current materials technology, can we insulate the "ground" where we would locate a Titanian habitat from the heat within the hab?

Seems to me we're going to have to limit heat leakage from the hab *very* selectively, or else the "ground" (or at least some of it) will become liquid where in direct contact... thereby alleviating your worries, Nick. No matter what we do, she'll eventually end up afloat, regardless!



-the other Doug

[David]

True, given accurate targeting...but then what?

I'd hate to have to design an auxiliary propulsion system to get the damn thing near the shore

Oh, I can think of a reasonably simple and deployable auxiliary propulsion system -- it would consist of a thin, tough, cold-resistant fabric stretched between two or more spars...

[nprev]

Ahrrr...har, har, har, David! Yeah, I'm thinkin' that playing mast monkey in a spacesuit even at 0.25G might not be the safest way to go...(although I hear the Navy guys from another thread cheering in the background)...

oDoug, that's a scary thought. Only thing that could be done is, assuming that the habitat/lander is basically a Dewar flask, limiting the internal vessel physical interfaces to & beyond the outer shell so that heat conduction is controllable: I'd use some thick, heavily insulated copper cabling (unless an advanced superconductor is available 200 years from now when all this might happen) attached near each interface point about 100m long, and stick the business end into the "soil" that far out...let it melt over there, not near the habitat. Notice also that this most effectively provides electrical grounding for the lander.